Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson CBE | |
---|---|
Birth name | Rowan Sebastian Atkinson |
Born | Consett, County Durham, England | 6 January 1955
Medium | |
Alma mater | |
Years active | 1978–present |
Spouse |
Sunetra Sastry
(m. 1990; div. 2015) |
Partner(s) | Louise Ford (2014–present)[1] |
Children | 3 |
Relative(s) | Rodney Atkinson (brother) |
Signature | |
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson
Atkinson has appeared in various films, including the
Atkinson was listed in
Early life
Atkinson was born in Consett, County Durham, England, on 6 January 1955.[5][6][7] The youngest of four boys, his parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945.[7] His three older brothers are Paul, who died as an infant; Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the UK Independence Party leadership election in 2000; and Rupert.[8][9]
Atkinson was brought up
Atkinson briefly embarked on a PhD study before devoting his full attention to acting.[18] First winning national attention in The Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1976,[13] he had already written and performed sketches for shows in Oxford by the Etceteras – the revue group of the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) – and for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), meeting writer Richard Curtis,[13] and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.[19]
Career
Radio
Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1979 called The Atkinson People. It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.[20]
Television
After university, Atkinson did a one-off pilot for
"The main appeal of the series is that of the brilliant comedian Atkinson as the mean-spirited and terminally sarcastic Edmund Blackadder."
—Garry Berman.[24]
The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to Atkinson taking the lead role of
Atkinson's other creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Year's Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened to a modern-day Buster Keaton,[30] but Atkinson himself has stated that Jacques Tati's character Monsieur Hulot was the main inspiration.[31] Atkinson states, "The essence of Mr Bean is that he's entirely selfish and self-centred and doesn't actually acknowledge the outside world. He's a child in a man's body. Which is what most visual comedians are about: Stan Laurel, Chaplin, Benny Hill."[32]
Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television until 1995, and the character later appeared in a feature film. Bean (1997) was directed by Mel Smith, Atkinson's colleague in Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second film, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in 2007.
Atkinson also portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in The Thin Blue Line (1995–96), a television sitcom written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.
Atkinson has fronted campaigns for
Atkinson appeared at the
In November 2012, it emerged that Atkinson intended to retire Mr. Bean. "The stuff that has been most commercially successful for me – basically quite physical, quite childish – I increasingly feel I'm going to do a lot less of," Atkinson told
In October 2014, Atkinson also appeared as Mr. Bean in a TV advert for
In October 2018, Atkinson (as Mr. Bean) received
Animated Mr. Bean
In January 2014, ITV announced a new animated series featuring Mr. Bean with Rowan Atkinson returning to the role. It was expected to be released online as a Web-series later in 2014, as a television broadcast followed shortly after.[49]
On 6 February 2018, Regular Capital announced that there would be a
Film
Atkinson's film career began with a supporting part in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983) and a leading role in Dead on Time (also 1983) with Nigel Hawthorne. He was in the 1988 Oscar-winning short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. He appeared in Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy (1989) and appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in The Witches (1990), a film adaptation of Roald Dahl's dark fantasy children's novel. He played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.
Atkinson gained further recognition as a verbally bumbling vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, written and directed by his long time collaborator Richard Curtis), and featured in Disney's The Lion King (also 1994) as the voice of Zazu the red-billed hornbill. He also sang the song "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" in The Lion King. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), jewellery salesman Rufus in another Richard Curtis British-set romantic comedy, Love Actually (2003), and the crime comedy Keeping Mum (2005), which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, and Patrick Swayze.[52]
In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen with Bean (1997) to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), (again inspired to some extent by Jacques Tati in his film Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot), also became an international success. He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English film series (2003–2018).[53] In 2023, Atkinson stars as priest, Father Julius, in Wonka, a film which serves as a prequel to the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, exploring Willy Wonka's origins.[54]
Theatre
Atkinson performed live on-stage skits – also appearing with members of Monty Python – in The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979) in London for Amnesty International.[55] Atkinson undertook a four-month tour of the UK in 1980. A recording of his stage performance at the Grand Opera House in Belfast was subsequently released as Live in Belfast.[56]
In 1984, Atkinson appeared in a West End version of the comedy play The Nerd alongside a 10-year-old Christian Bale.[57] The Sneeze and Other Stories, seven short Anton Chekhov plays, translated and adapted by Michael Frayn, were performed by Rowan Atkinson, Timothy West and Cheryl Campbell at the Aldwych Theatre, London in 1988 and early 1989.[58]
In 2009, during the West End revival of the musical
On 28 November 2012, Rowan Atkinson reprised the role of Blackadder at the "We are Most Amused" comedy gala for
In February 2013, Atkinson took on the titular role in a 12-week production (directed by Richard Eyre) of the Simon Gray play Quartermaine's Terms at Wyndham's Theatre in London with costars Conleth Hill (Game of Thrones) and Felicity Montagu (I'm Alan Partridge).[62] In December 2013, he revived his schoolmaster sketch for Royal Free Hospital's Rocks with Laughter at the Adelphi Theatre.[63] A few days prior, he performed a selection of sketches in a small coffee venue in front of only 30 people.[64]
Comic style
Best known for his use of physical comedy in his Mr. Bean persona, Atkinson's other characters rely more on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery. Journalist Anwar Brett writes, "Although his deadpan wit is in evidence as he speaks, Atkinson — beloved to Blackadder as much as Bean fans — takes his comedy very seriously."[65] On his ability to keep his focus on set during comedic moments, Johnny English director Oliver Parker commented, "There’s a scene where Johnny English is in a meeting going up and down on an office chair. Rowan's focus is astonishing in that scene, because everybody else – he hadn't realised – was having to hold back, and when I said 'cut!' there was an explosion of laughter."[65]
One of his better-known
Atkinson's often visually based style, which has been compared to that of
Influences
Atkinson's early comedy influences were the sketch comedy troupe
Of
Personal life
Marriage and children
Atkinson met makeup artist Sunetra Sastry in the late 1980s when she was working for the BBC, and they married in February 1990.[72] They had two children together,[73] and lived in Apethorpe.[74] In 2013, at the age of 58, Atkinson began a relationship with 32-year-old comedian Louise Ford after they met while performing in a play together.[75] Ford ended her relationship with comedian James Acaster in order to be with Atkinson,[75] who in turn separated from his wife in 2014 and divorced her in 2015.[76] He has one child with Ford.[77]
Cars
Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly "Class 1") lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his obsession with cars, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.[78] A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995.
Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a
The
In July 2001, Atkinson crashed an Aston Martin V8 Zagato at an enthusiasts' meeting, but walked away unhurt. This was while he was competing in the Aston Martin Owners Club event, at the Croft Racing Circuit, Darlington.[87]
One car Atkinson has said he will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people – and I wish them no ill – are not, I feel, my kind of people."[85][88]
In July 2011, Atkinson appeared as the "
A February 2024 report by the House of Lords partly blamed Atkinson for poor sales of electric cars in the UK by "damaging" the public's perception of the vehicles. The report criticised a June 2023 comment piece by Atkinson in the Guardian, who as an early adopter of electric vehicles, described EVs as "fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run", but burdened by battery issues and misleading beliefs on their impact on the environment.[89][90]
Plane incident
In March 2001, while Atkinson was on holiday in Kenya, the pilot of his private plane fainted; Atkinson managed to maintain the plane in the air until the pilot recovered and was able to land the plane at Wilson Airport in Nairobi.[91]
Political views
In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the United Kingdom's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry, and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which they felt would give overwhelming power to religious groups to impose censorship on the arts.[92] In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free-speech clause in an anti–gay hate law.[93] Atkinson opposed the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to outlaw inciting religious hatred, arguing that, "freedom to criticise ideas – any ideas even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. And the law which attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed."[94][95]
In October 2012, he voiced his support for the
In 2018, Atkinson defended comments made by Boris Johnson over wearing the burqa, which were criticized as Islamophobic for which Johnson later apologised.[100][101][102] Atkinson wrote to The Times stating, "as a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to make jokes about religion, I do think that Boris Johnson's joke about wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a pretty good one."[103][104] Atkinson's remarks were condemned by former colleagues and fans.[105][106][107]
In August 2020, Atkinson added his signature to a letter coordinated by Humanist Society Scotland along with twenty other public figures including novelist Val McDermid, playwright Alan Bissett and activist Peter Tatchell which expressed concern about the Scottish National Party's proposed Hate Crime and Public Order Bills. The letter argued the bill would "risk stifling freedom of expression."[108][109][110]
In January 2021, Atkinson criticised the rise of cancel culture. He said, "It's important that we're exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob, roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society. It becomes a case of either you're with us or against us. And if you're against us, you deserve to be 'cancelled'."[111]
Filmography
- 1979–1982: Not the Nine O'Clock News
- 1983–1989: Blackadder
- 1983: Never Say Never Again
- 1988: The Appointments of Dennis Jennings
- 1989: The Tall Guy
- 1990–1995: Mr. Bean
- 1995–1996: The Thin Blue Line
- 1990: The Witches
- 1993: Hot Shots! Part Deux
- 1994: Four Weddings and a Funeral
- 1994: The Lion King
- 1997: Bean
- 2000: Maybe Baby
- 2001: Rat Race
- 2002: Scooby-Doo
- 2003: Johnny English
- 2003: Love Actually
- 2005: Keeping Mum
- 2007: Mr. Bean's Holiday
- 2011: Johnny English Reborn
- 2017: Huan Le Xi Ju Ren
- 2018: Johnny English Strikes Again
- 2022: Man vs. Bee
- 2023: Wonka
Stage
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1981 | Rowan Atkinson in Revue | Various roles Also writer |
Globe Theatre |
Rowan Atkinson in New Revue | Various roles | ||
1984 | The Nerd | Willum Cubbert | Aldwych Theatre |
1986 | Rowan Atkinson at the Atkinson | Various roles Also writer |
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
|
1988 | The Sneeze | Various roles | Aldwych Theatre |
2009 | Oliver! | Fagin | Theatre Royal, Drury Lane |
2013 | Quartermaine's Terms | St. John Quartermaine | Theatre Royal, Brighton Theatre Royal, Bath Wyndham's Theatre |
Honours
Atkinson was appointed
See also
References
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actor Rowan Atkinson in 1955 (age 64)
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External links
- Rowan Atkinson at IMDb
- Rowan Atkinson biography at BFI Screenonline
- Rowan Atkinson at Rotten Tomatoes
- Rowan Atkinson interview on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs, 20 May 1988